A nationally known magazine not long ago claimed that a certain preacher probably "did more to mold American thinking than any other single influence except the Bible."—The Saturday Evening Post, Jan. 22, 1955. Who is this preacher?
You might guess that is was Moody or Finney. Another suggestion might be Billy Sunday or Billy Graham. To be correct you would have to try again. The preacher credited with the possible distinction of influencing more people than any other in America outside the Bible is William Holmes McGuffey.
"Who," you ask, "is McGuffey?"
McGuffey, we would reply, is the preacher and educator who wrote the famous McGuffey's Readers. His little books sold more than one hundred million copies. The moral teachings of this man were accepted by the American public through the instrumentality of secular education. Likewise, it is possible for our scholars and preachers to use the tools of secular education and influence to advance a knowledge of our teachings before the world.
Communism and its twin brother socialism have made great advances through their influence on the leaders of the educational world. Although they have not ignored the masses, they have concentrated on the scholars and educational leaders. These leaders, in turn, have passed on their convictions to their students.
The story of the growth of liberal theology, or modernism, is even more valuable to a discussion of this topic. Modernism by its very nature does not appeal to the general public. It tends to find comfort in negations and doubts. It tries to find hope in intellectual pride and human goodness. Such nebulous concepts do not appeal to the man on the street. The modernist preachers have not been able to stir the imagination of the average man. It is the fundamentalist who has been able to capture the large crowds. Despite these obvious weaknesses of modernism, its solid growth and commanding influence are nothing short of miraculous. You cannot talk with scarcely any person of influence in secular fields but he will reveal the fact that he has been influenced to some degree by liberal religious thought. Some people have referred to this philosophy as the "Reader's Digest type of morality." Regardless of what it is called, it is exceedingly popular with influential people. We must never forget that modernism began in the seminaries. While the fundamentalists were busy spending most of their time in the repair shop of humanity changing ideas and habits after they had already been developed, the liberals were in the planning room with the engineers of mankind inculcating their ideas into the human family as they developed. The children of darkness in this generation need not be wiser than the children of light. We can use similar methods. We have a right to expect the same results that truth always has had in competition with error.
Fortunately we have not been idle in this field. We have done engineering in the area of religious liberty. It has had an effect on the thinking of leaders everywhere. Lawyers, jurists, and ministers have warm praise for the work we are doing along this line. The newly proposed world calendar might well have been universally accepted had we not worked vigorously as engineers in human thought.
Our temperance work too shows an engineering side to its work. Through its program the educators are being educated. Our only regret is that Seventh-day Adventists could not have been the ones who discovered scientifically the apparent relationship between cancer and tobacco. Could it be that the establishment of the International Nutrition Research Foundation, in Arlington, California, or some such organization might prove to be the very means we need to demonstrate scientifically the principles of healthful living? Evidence that men of influence would accept and pass on to the world could then be available. We need to realize that with men in the upper strata of society, science has to a large degree replaced the Bible as the authority they live by. We must be willing to give chapter and verse from their "bible" as well as our own.
Christian people, including Adventists, have been preaching against the use of tobacco for a long time. But it remained for science to deal out in one stroke a stunning blow that has shaken the tobacco industry to its foundations. God has blessed my ministry in winning many people because they were able to understand how to get the victory over the tobacco habit. But I believe that I could have won many, many more souls if my interested people in their early years had been led by public influences, both religious and secular, not to smoke at all.
Some of our men in their own right have become guides in the realm of human thought. We have gained an open door in fields like the history of prophetic interpretation, early Adventist history, creationism, and medicine. But this is only a beginning. Too often we look to our scholars to help us defend our faith. We should look to them to help us propagate it as well. Our scholars can do much more than influence our own people and help defend us from the attacks of the opponents of truth. They can lead us to attack the enemy at the very gates of the defenders of error. Our men are well trained and fully competent to set themselves about the task of impressing the scholars of the world. Scholars talk, think, and act in a world all their own. It takes men of similar training to reach them as a group. But in reaching them we reach thousands through them. Through organized and systematic efforts in behalf of the intellectuals of the world, our learned men can do much for God. It is possible that such a program could set in motion men and organizations that could help prepare the stage for the loud cry.
In the Sikorsky airplane factory there is a sign that reads:
"According to recognized aerotechnical tests, the bumblebee cannot fly because of the shape and weight of his body in relation to the total wing area. The bumblebee doesn't know this, so he goes ahead and flies anyway."
Some Suggestions
I should like to make some suggestions that some would be able to prove are impossible to carry out. But I feel that if there are enough of us who do not know that these suggestions are impossible, perhaps we, like the bumblebee, can follow them anyway. At any rate, it is in the spirit of the bumblebee that I dare to make the following suggestions:
- Establish a scholarly, scientific journal to reach the intelligentsia.
- Provide time and money for our scholars to do research. Many business firms, such as Du Pont and General Electric, have found it pays to set aside millions of dollars a year for research. It could be profitable to us also.
- Attempt to develop opportunities whereby our men could be in a position to give lectures before learned societies, colleges, and universities.
- Provide time and money, if necessary, to allow our better writers to prepare articles on spiritual and moral questions that would be accepted for publication in popular magazines.
Some Possible Results
1. Such a program could remove much prejudice. There seems to be little prejudice against Christian Science among the educated classes. What seems absurd in their doctrines is glossed over by these people to a large extent by the solid reporting of the Christian Science Monitor. The high level of journalism of this newspaper has given the whole movement a firm standing in the world.
2. We could acquire many friends among thinking people. Even if the leaders would not accept our beliefs, they would be led to respect our thinking. Many of these men spend their whole lives attempting to be fair and unbiased in their search for truth. Perhaps these men too, in their own way, know God. The Spirit of prophecy suggests this thought.
"Whatever line of investigation we pursue, with a sincere purpose to arrive at truth, we are brought in touch with the unseen, mighty Intelligence that is working in and through all. The mind of man is brought into communion with the mind of God, the finite with the Infinite. The effect of such communion on body and mind and soul is beyond estimate."—Education, p. 14.
3. Provide adult evangelical opportunity for our educators. Our men often spend years in exhaustive study in order to prepare themselves for positions of trust in .our educational system. In it all they are ,of ten deprived of a most thrilling experience in soul winning. It is a joy to win a young person of less training and maturity, but it is a greater thrill to win someone who is of equal standing in life.
4. More young men would be led to enter the field of teaching. It is not hard to visualize how the hearts of our young people would be stirred by their teacher's account of his soul-winning contacts with some scholar, scientist, or industrialist. Does all this sound too visionary? Perhaps. But there is one thing clear: Such a thing can never happen unless we make a decided and organized effort in this direction.
5. This type of program would enable us to win more middle-class folks. We need more people of this class in order to strengthen and solidify our local church leadership. With the constantly rising level of education, this class will become larger every year. This means that the danger of having fewer of this type attending our public evangelistic services increases with the passing of time. Subjective, Bible-centered services have their greatest appeal on the common level.
On the other hand, a full program of influencing public opinion can do the almost unbelievable. In 1926 a group of leading industrialists decided it would help reduce taxes if they could get this country to do away with the Eighteenth Amendment. They joined the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment. They poured their money into this project and recruited as many as possible of the forces of influence. Soon leaders in the radio, press, and entertainment world were used to advance the ideas of this association. In 1933 the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed. In just seven short years these men by engineering methods reversed a decision it took perhaps one hundred years to accomplish by repair-shop techniques. (See The Amazing Story of Repeal, Fletcher Dobyns.)
6. It would enable us to work as Jesus would have liked to work. Eighteen years before Christ began His ministry of binding up the brokenhearted, proclaiming liberty to the captives, and opening prisons to them that are bound, He endeavored to reach the leaders of Israel. During His visit at the Temple the boy Jesus sought out these men. We are told that "God was seeking to give light to those leaders in Israel."—The Desire of Ages, p. 80.
Why was He trying to enlighten these leaders? The Spirit of prophecy tells us:
"The doctors turned upon Him with questions, and they were amazed at His answers. With the humility of a child He repeated the words of Scripture, giving them a depth of meaning that the wise men had not conceived of. if followed, the lines of truth He pointed out would have worked a reformation in the religion of the day. A deep interest in spiritual things would have been awakened; and when Jesus began His ministry, many would have been prepared to receive Him."—Ibid., pp. 78, 79. (Italics supplied.)
It is evident from this that God recognized two thousand years ago the value of educating the educators. Is it not equally clear today that we need to do the same; that we need to be engineers as well as repairmen?
